Critical Illness/ Life Insurance non payouts on claim

mortgageme_2

I have just watched Martin on tonight with Trevor McDonald and I am shocked that non of the experts or insurers mentioned the fact that you can actually get the policy fully underwritten before acceptance of terms are offered by the insurer and best of all they normally give you free insurance whilst they do their checks.

My advice to any potential new policy holder is ask your advisor or insurer to gain access to your medical records if you are in any doubt whatsoever as this will enable the insurance company to price the cover accordingly.

As the ABI has now ensured that non disclosure has no real grey arears customers should be better protected in the future.

Dont leave anything to chance!

calaf

on a policy because there has been a non disclosure, as was the case in the programme tonight,

since it is a null and void policy, why is the person who has paid into the policy for how ever many years not entitled to all the money that has been paid into the policy being refunded?

Surely if the policy has been deemed to be void by the company they have therefore taken the money in error.

They talked about "honest customers". Is it honest to tell customers that they won't pay out for non disclosure.

If they only found out once a claim was made, what is the difference to completing a check at the start? It seems a little ludicrous to say they won't pay out on a policy that has in good faith been paid into and then keep that money when they have made their decision.

Just imagine if the companies had to refund all those people!

dunstonh

since it is a null and void policy, why is the person who has paid into the policy for how ever many years not entitled to all the money that has been paid into the policy being refunded?

Because the policyholder committed fraud.

Just imagine if the companies had to refund all those people!

A very small number of claims are rejected for non-disclosure nowadays. Typically around the 5% mark. Some of the non-disclosures are disgraceful try it ons. Its a bit hard to forget heart attacks from 2 years earlier for example.

koexelek

Remember a few years back, I saw a client walking down the street to the office I used to work at, smoking a cigarette.

He had come to arrange a life insurance policy.
When he said that he was a non-smoker, I pointed out that, technically you had to have given up for at least a year, not a minute :rotfl:

Wutang_2

Martin Lewis is getting a lot of stick in my office today.

Needless scaremongering about people who don't disclose the full info.

Its like when people get repossessed and blame the interest rates or car insurance not paying out as they now have points on their license (everything is explained at the start)..

Does my head in.

dunstonh

I dont understand the attacks now on the insurers. A number of years ago maybe but since the FOS came out with a non-disclosure process and insurers started publishing claims stats then it has turned into a non-issue for most.

It's only an issue for the liars and maybe the odd case which an insurer does get it wrong and the FOS would sort out.